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Comment by guest_blog on May 14, 2014 at 2:29pm

FBI agent who killed Todashev retired from Oakland PD in 2004 after having been the subject of two police brutality lawsuits and 4 IA investigations

The Boston FBI agent who fatally shot a Chechen friend of Tamerlan Tsarnaev in Florida last year had a brief and troubled past at the Oakland Police Department in California. In four years, Officer #8313 took the Fifth at a police corruption trial and was the subject of two police brutality lawsuits and four internal affairs investigations. He retired from the department in 2004 at age 31.

Over the past year, FBI and Massachusetts officials have refused to identify the two state troopers and the agent involved in the May 22, 2013, shooting of Ibragim Todashev, 27, in his Orlando apartment, where he agreed to be interviewed. During the session, Todashev, a mixed martial arts fighter with a criminal record, turned violent, flinging a tabletop at the FBI agent and brandishing a metal pole at the trooper, they said. He was stopped by seven bullets from the FBI agent’s gun.

Even Florida, which often identifies such officers, declined to do so in this case, citing concerns for the investigators’ safety.

McFarlane’s full name and birth date on records in Massachusetts and New Hampshire match that of the Oakland police officer who was involved in several controversies during his four years with that police force. He retired with a pension of more than $52,000 annually for the rest of his life.

In California, lawyers who had sued McFarlane in Oakland were stunned that the FBI later hired him.

“I would be shocked to learn that the Aaron McFarlane we sued a decade ago could have gone on to have a career with the FBI,” said Ian Kelley, a San Francisco lawyer who sued McFarlane on behalf of a man, Michael Cole, who accused McFarlane and another officer of beating him.

The events described in that lawsuit, he said, “should have thrown up a red flag.”

Ben Rosenfeld, a civil rights lawyer in San Francisco who represented a plaintiff in a similar case against McFarlane, said the FBI should have been concerned about the allegations against McFarlane.

Read more: http://www.bostonglobe.com